Times of the Past Alyssa's Story Chapter 3: Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, a harry potter fanfic

Disclaimer : I own nothing! and if i did, trust me, peter'd be worse'n dead, james n lily woulda had twenty kids and lived to a ripe old age, and sirius would be a manwhore until the end.. but noooo.. also, if it was my choice, REMUS'S NAME WOULD BE.. BOB! ok, not really, but anyway, all this stuff 'cept Alyssa and Kylie belong to senorita Rowling /

Also, I just wanted to point out, that, unlike Ms. Rowling, I don't take things a day at a time.. for example, Chapter One was when they first got to school, and that whole month.. (I'm not sure when it is so I say September) Ch 2 was the whole month of October, This chapter is part of the month of November, n part December :) Jus wanted to make sure I didn't lose anyone.. k.. anyway.. here we go!

Ok, convincing Lily that James was an alright guy was harder than I thought. I tried everything, and nothing worked. I was ready to slam my head into a wall, dude.

I officially hated redheads.

"Lily, why wont ya give him jus' one chance? Pleeeease?" I pouted. Lily and I were in the library, the Wednesday after the Hogsmeade trip.

"Alyssa," Lily frowned, turning to me, "James Potter is a PIG and you of all people should know that."

I sighed. "Lils, just try it? You know what? The Yule Ball is coming up, and you and James should go." I hadn't thought of it before, but now I was making sure it happened.

If I had to use magic, I would make her say yes to James.

She glared at me over the top of her book. "I'll make you a deal, Lyssa. If you convince Potter to leave people alone for ONE WEEK I'll go to the Ball with him."

I almost jumped with joy. "Deal," I said, and ran out of the library before she could change her mind. Now, to convince James.

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"A WEEK?" Sirius looked shocked. "SHE EXPECTS HIM TO BEHAVE A WHOLE WEEK?"

I nodded, knowing how grave the situation was. James couldn't behave an hour, much less a week.

"There's no way, no way at all," muttered Sirius. James slugged him on the arm and went back to staring into the fire. Remus shook his head, but his eyes had their

humorous glow back in them, and he wasn't quite as pale as he had been a week ago. He smiled at my serious expression, then looked back at James and Sirius.

James finally looked up at me.

"What's today?"

"November 29th," Remus answered. Now he, too, was staring into the fire.

"And when is the ball?"

"December 18th."

James seemed to be considering his options. I could see the wheels turning in his head. Go to the ball with Lily Evans or prank the brains out of the 1st - 4th years? I guess Lily won over, cuz he looked up at me and nodded.

"I'll do it."

"Can't believe you agreed to it," muttered Sirius as we trudged back from another long Quidditch practice. James scowled at him, then turned to Remus.

"One week 'til the full moon," he said. I wondered what that had to do with anything. Remus seemed to know what he was talking about though, because he nodded. I have never liked being left out of a conversation, so I abrubtly changed the subject.

Gotta love my tactics.

"The ball is in a two and a half weeks," I commented. "Who all has a date?" I looked pointedly at James. He smiled sheepishly.

"Well, Evans said she'd go if I behaved for a week.. she never said when the week was," he shrugged.

Sirius grinned. "I'm going with Kylie Brooks." More like, he was using that as a good excuse to get in Kylie Brooks's pants.. but oh well.

Remus shrugged. "I don't have anyone yet." Whaaaaat?

"Me neither." I didn't really care about the ball anyway, was a waste of time to me.

Remus looked at me strangely, then shrugged and walked on with the boys. Sometimes that boy confuses me.. but then again, that's not a hard thing to do. He was just so secretive, sometimes it-

"Hey, wait up!"

I was sitting in the library when Remus came looking for me, once again.

"Hey stranger," I said to him, going over my stupid 3 page report for Defence Against Dark Arts.

"Werewolves?" He raised his eyebrows at me. I shrugged. I hadn't chosen the topic, so whatever.. Personally, I didn't see who gave a flyin kick about the characteristics of a werewolf.. but.. again, whatever.

"I can help you with that essay." Remus smiled at me, but his eyes were suddenly clouded over.

Oook.

"Sure!" I said, welcome for any help whatsoever. Remus sat down next to me and began in on a long explanation about the werewolf's tail.

It was only a week and a half until the ball, and frankly, my lack of a date was getting depressing. Alice was going with Frank, Sirius with Kylie, James with Lily, even Peter had a date with Amelia Bones! The only person I knew of that didn't have a date was Remus, and it looked like Jimmy Lovegood's little sister Lena had her eye on him.

Ok, I was royally screwed.

No big deal, right?

Ahhhhh!

Anyway, I was seriously considering asking Peeves to go to the ball with me when I noticed the Mauraders were missing. Hmph!

Hurt by their excluding me in whatever prank they were doing now, I ate dinner alone. I thought nothing of it and went to bed.

Around 4 in the morning or so, I woke up (don't ask me why). I snuck into the guys dorms again and saw they STILL weren't back.

So, I did what any normal brunette teenage girl would do when worried about her friends.

I went to look for em.

First, I further investigated in the boy's dorm's, and saw that James's Invisibility Cloak and Maurader's Map was missing. Dammit.

Hoping nobody would see me, I snuck out of the school and down to Hagrid's hut. I looked through the window, only to see Fang and Hagrid sleeping peacefully (well, snoring peacefully). The guys weren't there, either.

Now I really WAS getting worried.

"Sirius?" I called out softly. "Remus? James, Peter?"

In the far distance, I could've sworn I head a muffled yell.

"Peter?" I called again. He was the only one with that squeaky of a yell, it had to have been him.

"Alyssa, come here." James sounded like he was miles away.

"Where?" I called, walking in the direction that I thought they were at. It didn't help at all that the wind was blowing and it was the foggiest night we'd had so far.

"Over HERE." Sirius's voice was slightly closer, though I realized I was going too far to the right.

Try again.

I continued to walk, increasing my pace. I stopped just in front of the Whomping Willow. Peter stood beside it.

"Follow me," he said. He hesitated, then picked up a nearby stick and prodded the center of the tree. The evil thing stopped, as if it had been stunned.

"In there?" I asked, wondering if the kid was crazy. He nodded and dissapeared within it.

Me and that tree got off to a bad start.. it tried to eat me when I was a first year, and now I was supposed to walk in the middle of it, willingly?

I would've spent a good 30 minutes debating it, had I not heard Sirius and James's "Hurry up!" from somewhere within. Sighing, I followed Peter.

He led me through some kinda weird tunnelish looking thing that opened into a room. Wait a minute..

this all looked familiar for some reason.

I suddenly knew where I was : The Shrieking Shack

and in the middle of it, on a scraggly bed, lay Remus Lupin.

At first thought, I thought maybe something had hurt him; he was bleeding all over the place.

"Lyss," said Sirius, almost desperately, "you know about healing, DO SOMETHING!"

"What happened?" I asked, frozen.

James, who had remained quiet, finally stood up and looked down at me.

"He did this to himself," James said evenly. He caught my eye, as if trying to tell me something.

"He did this to himself? How? Only a mon-" Suddenly, it all clicked.

Moony.

"One week 'til the full moon."

The bruises.

"It's been 12 hours, I'm fine, really."

"I can help you with that essay."

His clouded over eyes.

I guess my eyes widened, because James gave me a nod. He could tell that I understood.

"Right," I said, noticing vaguely how my voice sounded strained, "Let's get him patched up."

Remus avoided me the next morning, which pissed me off.

I couldn't help it!

When classes were over and we were in the dorms for the night, I got fed up and complained to Sirius.

"He's worried about your reaction," Sirius said calmly.

I threw a spellbook across the room.

"I don't give a -insert word here- about his WORRYING," I yelled, "I want him to STOP avoiding me, Goddammit!"

Sirius gave me that "Why-do-I-even-try-to-talk-to-women" sigh and stood up. "I'll be back," he said, and walked up the stairs to the guy's rooms.

I sighed and lay my head down on the table.

When I heard footsteps approaching, I expected it to be Sirius.

"What took you so long?" I muttered.

"Well, it took about 5 minutes for Sirius to convince me to come down here."

Remus.

I raised my eyes to meet his. Where there was normally at least a small spark of friendliness, now even his face was frozen in a neutral, almost angry expression.

Remus sighed and sat down beside me. "I didn't want you to know."

I nodded and looked away. Two can play the silent game, mister.

"Lyssa.." I can never say no to that damned innocent boy voice. Ugh..

I turned around and frowned at him again. "Yes?"

"You shouldn't have seen me like tha-"

"So, you're Moony because you're a werewolf eh? What's Sirius and James? Padfoot and Prongs? And what about Peter, Wormtail?"

Remus glanced around to make sure nobody had overheard (which was kinda stupid seeing how we were alone), then turned back to me. "Sirius is a dog, James is a stag, and Peter is a rat."

I raised my eyebrows at the Wormtail explanation but left it alone.

For now.

"Okay, so what else is going on that I don't know about?"

Remus thought about it a second, then shrugged. "Well," he said, turning slightly red, "you could always.. you know.. youcouldalwaysgototheballwithme." He flushed deeper.

I grinned, intending to milk this for all it was worth. "What was that?"

He glared at me.

Sucker.

So there I was, the night of the dance. Lily and Alice and Kylie had drug me out shopping ("You HAVE to get a dress, Lyssa, come on!"), and then Lily attempted to do something with my curly hair while Kylie put eye shadow and all that good stuff on me.

"Weeeeeeeeeeee," giggled Kylie as she applied another shade of lip gloss to my lips. If I thought I could move them, I would have told her that four layers was enough. As it was, I felt like I had bricks on my face.

And don't even get me started with my hair.

First Lily had tried to get me to let her cut it.

HA!

Good one.

So, she settled on throwing it all on top of my head and letting curls go everywhere.

At least she tamed the curls.. I guess.

Ugh.

Now, I don't care what people say, my hair weighs ten pounds by itself, and then she piled it all on top of my head.. I was sure to have a headache before the ball even began.

Believe it or not, I was satisfied with my dress (this coming from a girl who hadn't worn a skirt since she was 8). It was (like all my other clothing) black, floor length, and not too clingy, but not all poofyish like a ballerina tutu. For some reason, however, I still felt like a show-poodle while I was waiting on Lily herself to get all primped up.

Not that she needs it.

Lily was wearing a slinky cocktail black dress ("I'LL DIE BEFORE I WEAR GREEN") and had her hair pulled back in an elegant bun. Oh my God.

I said elegant.

Lord, help me.

Anyway, besides for Lils, there was Kylie in her rather revealing dominatrix-looking..outfit.. and Alice in her simple paleish pink floor-length dress.

But why am I talking about dresses?

Aghhhh

Anyway, Lily, Kylie, Alice, and I all attempted to 'descend' the stairs at the same time.

Keyword : Attempted.

If James and Remus hadn't have been standing at the end of the stairs, we would've rolled to the Great Hall.

Ugh.

Anyway, we all exchanged the normal compliments, blah blah blah, and headed to "ze elegaunt ballroom" (Alice's words). After Dumbledore greeted us and all that jazz, we began to dance to some Weird Sisters song. The next one was a slow one, so I kinda half-danced with Remus. Well, the majority of it was stepping all over his feet.

He was smart though.

He didn't say a word.

And that's pretty much how the night went, with the occasional dance or two. James and Lily, I noted, danced the whole night. Once, as James faced me (Lily was facing opposite), he gave me a wink. I shook my head at him and grinned.

Of course, a slow song chose to come on at that time, so James and Lily dissapeared in the crowd. That's when Remus decided he wanted to dance again.

Brave man.

I really tried hard not to step on his feet, I did! I guess I did a pretty good job, because he finally quit wincing every five seconds. Either I stopped or his toes were numb.

Anyway, we were out there dancing, and all that stuff, when beside us, who would come up but Severus Snape and this chick Lexie Concord. Remus and I tried to ignore them at first, until "Mudblood", "Slut", and "Filthy Muggle born" began drifting over to me.

Now, I'm proud to be a muggle born.

I'm also proud to say I performed the best bat-bogey curse I've ever done that night.

So once we got Snape out of our way, Remus and I began dancing again, but he didn't look like his heart was really in it.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

He jumped like he had been in a daze and smiled at me. "Nothing."

I didn't believe him, but I didn't have much time to think on it, because as I glanced up again, I saw his face only inches from mine.

"Remus?"

He smiled again, and his eyes sparkled.

Now, I've said it before, I can't resist that damn sparkling.

Grr.

I told you the quietest ones are the most dangerous.

But personally, I didn't care.

I closed my eyes as his face grew even closer, and a few seconds later (though it seemed like 30 minutes) I felt his lips brush mine.